Israel's Boutique Wineries

I first had occasion to drink really good Israeli wine several years ago, on one of our prior trips. We were spending a couple nights with Hilla and Boaz in Modi’in, and I wanted to bring a nice bottle of wine to dinner. We stopped in a wine shop near the Namal (the former port, north of downtown Tel Aviv, redone with shops, restaurants, even a few beach bars). As it turned out, the shop was Porto Vino, probably the best wine shop in all of Israel, and a spot that Danny has come to know very well. The owner recommended a bottle of Tulip Syrah; in retrospect, I think it must have been the Reserve Syrah. (More on Tulip in a subsequent posting.) It was excellent, and for the first time, we had the chance to drink Israeli wine that could compare favorably with California, Australia, Argentina. Maybe we weren’t talking Cote Rotie, not just yet, but this Tulip was very impressive.

 

A few years later, Roger Dietz, who was mediating a securities fraud case I was prosecuting, was dining regularly at the Chophouse, and one night he gave us a glass of Zauberman Merlot. Roger introduced it as the best wine in Israel, albeit impossible to find in this country. Now we were talking world class. The Zauberman compared favorably with anyone’s wine, and although we weren’t typically fans of merlot, this Zauberman knocked us out.

 

In the meantime, Danny had become friendly with the proprietor of Porto Vino, and started shipping top flight Israeli wines home for all of us to enjoy. We had occasion to sample Flam, Margalit, and others I can no longer recall. And then, about a year ago, as I arrived home one evening after work, I found a package on my stoop; when I opened it, lo and behold, there were six bottles of Zauberman Merlot. Unbelievable!!

 

So on our most recent trip this past February, the Morgenbergs devoted three days to touring Israeli wineries. We had the good fortune to get introduced to Tomar Solna, who served as our guide for two of those three days, while we drove through the north, and visited several of Israel’s boutique wineries. We wanted to tour places that were not necessarily accustomed to a lot of visitors. We didn’t really want to visit any of the bigger commercial wineries; nor did we want to end up at a tasting with a busload of folks touring the country. So Danny and Tomar settled on four small wineries in the north, two in the Carmel region, and two on the Golan.

 

My biggest regret is that these wines are not more readily available in the US. There is apparently a new website – Israeliwinedirect.com – that intends to make boutique wines available for sale in this country. For now, however, their inventory is quite small, but I guess they need to start somewhere. And we learned that at least one of the wineries – the aforementioned Tulip – intends to begin distributing their product in some of the larger metropolitan areas. Thus, good Israeli wine will be several thousand miles closer to us, even if it’s not quite yet in Western New York.  And while we are all waiting for that to happen, let me tell you about those wines we had the chance to sample on our recent travels. Stay tuned.

Still Struggling, Even with Southerland

I had been planning to write about the Providence game, focusing on the 31-4 run at the end of the first half, and also on how Southerland had ignited the offense. The Orange had been in the doldrums when he was out of the lineup, scoring in the fifties and sixties, and relying almost exclusively on their defense. And although their defense was reliable -- the zone remains effective, even when no one is hitting their jump shots -- if they have any hopes of advancing in the post-season, they'll need some offense to go with the defense. And I figured that Southerland's return had reignited the offense in the Providence game, allowing them to resume their early season winning ways.

But I guess I figured wrong, because Saturday afternoon, in front of the largest on-campus crowd ever to watch a basketball game, Cuse had no offense at all -- none -- even with Southerland back in the line-up. Raftery kept crediting Georgetown's zone, and their defense was impressive, but Southerland and Triche and Fair had as many good looks as the Hoyas had, but what they didn't have was someone, for example Porter, who was able to convert those open looks and put points on the board. Which makes me ask how it was that Porter had any open looks at all in the second half? I mean, he had singlehandedly kept Georgetown in the game during the first half, when they started the game completely out of sync. At half time I think he had scored sixteen of Georgetown's 21 points. So how was it that any defender left Porter alone in the second half, even for a millisecond? Doesn't it seem that someone should have been glued to the guy throughout the second half?

It's obviously the case that no team can win without being able to put the ball in the hoop. Shooting 34 percent, and only twenty percent from beyond the arc, just isn't going to get it done. Nor are the Orange likely to win big games when committing sixteen turnovers. That's what Georgetown's zone accomplished, more than interfering with Cuse's shooting. You'd think the Orange would know how to play against the zone, as they see it every day in practice, and play it almost all the time during games, but on Saturday Georgetown's zone completely bollixed them up. The Hoyas seemed to be in the Orange passing lanes all the time, and the guards were unable, most of the time, to penetrate, and create open shots for the big guys. Another problem was that Grant and Christmas simply forgot to show up. They did nothing, allowing Georgetown, in effect to play five on four, or maybe even three.

I'm hoping that the Cuse just laid an egg on Saturday. Really, there are enough shooters on the team, enough guys who can hit open threes, so that there shouldn't be many of these games when no one can score. More of a problem though, is the fact that the game was nationally televised, and so everyone was educated on how to slow down the SU offense.

Let's hope they bounce back. Go Orange.